Beef with ‘Rief: Rob’s revenge

So here we go, the stretch we've been talking about for months. The next five games will show everyone what the Saints are made of as they will face what appears to be four potential playoff teams.

It all starts with Sunday night’s showdown with the Dallas Cowboys.

I can start in so many places with this BWR, but the obvious place to begin is Rob Ryan facing his former team.

During OTAs in May, Ryan told the New Orleans media, in a joking manner, that when the Cowboys fired him he would find a job in five minutes. Well it took a little longer than that, but the Saints snagged him up a month later. His comments may have come off as a joke, but you better believe Sunday’s game is bigger than the game against Rex and the Jets. Rob will do any and everything to beat Dallas after they dumped him in January. All the players I spoke to in the Saints locker room said they would love nothing more than to beat the Cowboys for their defensive coordinator. They also understand why and how Ryan would be mad and would want revenge.

Now, revenge for the defense obviously starts with cleaning up all the issues from the Jets loss. Geno Smith wasn't an issue last week, but Tony Romo is a completely different story. Romo leads a Dallas team that’s fourth in scoring in the NFL at 28.6 points per game. The Cowboys signal caller has thrown for over 2500 yards and 20 touchdowns to only six interceptions. He's a quarterback who can scramble and find his targets down the field, and has two pretty good guys to find.

The most obvious receiver Romo has been looking for this season is Dez Bryant. So far in 2013, it's been Calvin Johnson for the Lions and Dez Bryant for the Cowboys. Bryant has been terrorizing secondaries to the tune of 705 yards and 8=eight touchdowns. Keenan Lewis will have the duty of containing Bryant and says he welcomes the challenge. Lewis has done a good job so far on teams' top receivers such as Julio Jones, Larry Fitzgerald, and Mike Wallace. The key could be to frustrate Bryant like the Lions did, to where he threw a temper tantrum on the sidelines because he wanted the ball more. Romo will also have the ageless wonder Jason Witten, who has 45 receptions for 505 yards and four touchdowns.

If you think the Saints are bad at running the ball, the Cowboys are a little worse. They're averaging 75 yards a game, but Demarco Murray is getting healthy and that could be trouble, especially after giving up 140 yards to Chris Ivory. The Saints may have a lot of success if they get the Cowboys to third down because they're only converting at a 33 percent clip on that down. Plus, it's a chance for the Saints to get to Romo, who's been sacked 19 times.

I'm not really worried about Drew Brees and the offense. They will get their yards and points on the Cowboys defense. For a team that fired Ryan, Cowboys' defense got worse. They're ranked 31st in total defense and passing defense. You can only imagine what Brees is thinking when he sees that Dallas is giving up 415 yards to opposing teams. Their defense could get a boost with the return of DeMarcus Ware, who's missed the last three games with a thigh injury. Remember the last time they played in New Orleans in 2009, Ware was questionable all week and ended up playing and helped the Cowboys end the Saints undefeated streak at 13-0.

The only thing the Saints need to worry about is having a healthy Jimmy Graham and a healthy running game. This has been a broken record topic all season long, and honestly, I don't know if anything can be done right now. Eighty yards a game won't help out Brees especially if he's throwing the ball 50 times a game. The best performance the Saints have had this year came from Pierre Thomas was when he racked up a minuscule 65 yards against the Bills. In fact, the last time the Saints had a 100-yard rusher was Thomas last September against the Panthers. He rushed for 110 yards on nine carries in a loss to the Panthers.

Time for my pick to click. I’ll go with Kenny Stills this week. He was too quiet last week and I think Brees will find a way to use him down the field on that suspect secondary.

So many good games in this series since the Sean Payton era started in 2006. The Saints are 3-1 against the Cowboys in that span. Their only loss came in 2009, but they went on to win Super Bowl 44 that year. The Saints beat them in Dallas in their last two meetings, last season in overtime then on Thanksgiving in 2010. If you don't remember, that's when Malcolm Jenkins stripped the ball away from Roy Williams as he was going into the end zone. That led to a game winning drive by Brees where he found Lance Moore for the touchdown to win 30-27. So some good games in the past and I expect another one Sunday. But I think the Saints come out mad after their loss to the Jets, unfortunately the Cowboys will feel the wrath of the Black and Gold in prime time in the dome.

Cowboys 21, Saints 31

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